An opinion prevails throughout the whole body, that justice is
not done there. I do not mean to say they complain of the sentences
being too severe generally; that would be natural enough on their parts,
and not worth notice. They believe everything done at that court a
matter of chance; that _in the same day, and for a like crime_, one man
will be sentenced to _transportation for life_, while another may be let
off for a _month's imprisonment_, and yet both equally bad characters.
It only needs that punishment should be sure to follow the conviction
for crime, and that the judgments should be uniform and settled, to
strike terror into the whole body of London criminals. Out of the 2,550
annually tried, nearly one-fourth are acquitted, leaving little short of
2,000 for sentence in each year. Of these the average transported are
800; deduct 200 for cases of an incidental nature, i.e. crimes not
committed by regular offenders, and there remain 1,000 professed thieves
who are again turned loose in a short period on the town, all of whom
appear in due course again at the court of the Old Bailey, or at some
other, many times in the revolution of one year.
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